Luke was dreaming. Or maybe not. It was hard to tell anymore.
In dreams, you forget things, faces lts, voices slip. The world looks like a blur.
But this one?
This one knew him.
He found himself living a life that wasn’t his. Nas ca to the forefront of his mind. Vencian Vicorra. House Vicorra. Kingdom of Airantis.
He could swear none of that were related to him.
Yet he knew that at the age of fourteen, Vencian had led a mock battle and defeated a veteran knights.
At sixteen, he had won a border skirmish that none thought was possible.
At seventeen, he entered the kingdom’s elite academy without the rits of his family.
It was a perfect life. Too perfect that even so movie directors who make movies with Mary Sue characters will shy away.
But then the dream changed. It stopped telling him a story.
The dream shattered into a blinding white light. So bright that it made his mind recoil. He couldn’t see anything, but he could feel it.
And from inside that light ca a voice. It sounded to kind to Luke’s ear.
He felt it creeping into his mind, pushing, squeezing. Like it was trying to overwrite sothing. Like it wanted to consu him or replace him.
Luke’s instincts scread at him to reject it. To not take its hand. It felt wrong. Like he’d lose sothing vital if he accepted it.
And he rejected it.
He didn’t know how. But his mind flinched so hard that the world shattered.
---
He opened his eyes, gasping. His lungs felt like they were on fire.
The room around him felt wrong. It was too big. Too clean. The walls were decorated with ornate patterns. The bed nearby looked like sothing out of a historical drama. He was lying on the floor beside it.
The floor beneath was extrely cold.
He looked toward the window. It was night. Moonlight spilled into the room, enough for him to make out the details. He pushed his palm against the floor to stand up, but he stopped when a sharp sting shot through his hand.
He looked down. There was a deep gash across his palm. The blood had dried, crusted over. The sight jolted him.
Confused, he slowly got to his feet. His movents felt foreign - the reach of his arms different, his center of gravity shifted. Even the simple act of standing required conscious adjustnt.
Thoughts rushed in. What the hell was happening?
Did soone kidnap ?
But then he dismissed it. Who would even bother?
"Not like I’m a rich guy. Or a girl. Or rich girl." he said out loud, trying to make light of it. The voice that erged surprised him - deeper, more refined than what he expected. Even that simple joke sounded different coming from this throat.
"Still got both kidneys, right?"
He felt his sides, just to check. Everything seed in place.
Sothing was wrong. This wasn’t his apartnt.
Trying to keep his thoughts steady, he turned toward the full-length mirror leaning against the wall.
He froze. The person staring back wasn’t him.
Gone was his usual skinny fra, dull eyes, and unkempt black hair.
In the mirror stood a young man. Taller. Lean but clearly strong. Platinum white hair, not ssy but naturally styled. High cheekbones. Clear skin. Sharp jawline. Soone who looked like he belonged in a movie.
His mouth moved, but no sound ca out.
And the worst part?
He already knew his na.
Vencian...?
He stared at the reflection, heart pounding, mind blank.
His heart started beating faster. This wasn’t within anything he had prepared for. He hadn’t calculated for this.
Just a mont ago, the pain in his palm had made it clear that this wasn’t a dream. This was real.
How the fuck did it co to this?
In his distress, he looked around the room again. His eyes landed on the study table in the corner. It stood out imdiately. It didn’t look like a normal desk.
Spread across its surface was a large piece of parchnt. On it, a strange and detailed symbol had been drawn. Parts of it had been traced over in red, as if soone had rewritten certain sections. Candles were placed carefully at several points around the symbol, aligned in a symtrical pattern - now burned down to re stubs, wax pooled and hardened around their bases.
And next to it all, sat a knife. Its blade was stained with dried blood, the crimson now dark and flaking. Hours had passed since it was used.
Luke stared at it, then glanced down at his own hand. The gash on his palm matched too perfectly. The angle and the depth were so precise that it had to be self-inflicted.
He swallowed hard.
What could have driven soone to this? The precision suggested deliberate action.
In the corner of the parchnt, sothing was written in a language he didn’t recognize. The letters were unfamiliar, yet his mind insisted they ant sothing. It was like trying to rember a word on the tip of his tongue, only this word had never belonged to any language he had ever learned.
He leaned forward slightly to get a better look at the strange writing.
The symbols seed to shift in the candlelight, and suddenly the room felt different. Colder. The shadows in the corners appeared deeper, and the silence pressed against his ears.
Sothing was watching him.
He felt it before he saw anything: a presence. His skin prickled as he turned sharply toward the window.
Nothing. Just the night sky and moonlight.
He stood still for a long mont, pulse quickening. "Just my imagination," he muttered, but his voice sounded thin in the empty room.
He turned back to the table, trying to shake off the unease. The writing seed important sohow, familiar yet foreign. His body moved on instinct, leaning closer.
As his eyes focused on the first character, sothing stirred in his mind. A recognition that shouldn’t exist. The symbol ant sothing, and sohow he knew—
The presence returned. Stronger now. Not watching anymore, but reaching.
His vision blurred. The room tilted. He could feel sothing vast and alien pressing against the edges of his consciousness, trying to push its way in.
No. Not again.
His brain went numb. A sudden, crushing pressure slamd into his mind like a freight train, and the world exploded into that sa blinding white light from his dream.
Then everything went dark, and he collapsed.
---
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